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ternative did not yet lie between its unconditional acceptance and total rejection; but as the convention was yet in session and so greatly divided, the worst was to be feared at any moment. Two of the three New York delegates, Lansing and Yates, left the convention while it was in the midst of its labors and declared that their constituents would never have sent delegates there, if they had dreamed that any such projects were on foot. And it repeatedly seemed as if half of the deputies would follow their example, and the convention dissolve without having accomplished its task. On two of the most important questions the views of the delegates were diametrically opposed and it was apparently impossible to mediate between them. Complete helplessness threatened them, for every attempt at compromise served only to make the gap between them wider; and the supporters of the opposing views were always forced by the discussion into yet more extreme positions, so that at last the signs of personal bitterness began to show themselves.

When finally, every prospect of an understanding seemed to have disappeared, the white haired Franklin arose and proposed that henceforth the sessions should be opened. with prayer, for now there was no hope of help except from heaven; the wit of man was exhausted! The hope of ultimate success must have been small, indeed, when such a proposition could be made by Franklin, strongly inclined as he was to rationalism, a man who at heart was averse to all religious demonstration and who, even in the darkest hours of the war, had carried his head very high.

'Lansing declared on the 16th of June: "Had the legislature of the state of New York apprehended that their powers would have been construed to extend to the formation of a national government, to the extinguishment of their independency, no delegates would have appeared here on the part of that state." Yates's Minutes, Elliott, Deb., I., p. 141. See also letter from the Hon. Rob. Yates and the Hon. John Lansing, Jun., to the governor of New York. Elliott, Deb., I., p. 480

2 Elliott, Deb., V., p. 254.

Pinckney, with passionate emphasis, declared that South Carolina would never accept a constitution which did not afford proper protection to the interests of the slaveholders; and Gouverneur Morris, speaking of the demand of the smaller states to have equal representation in congress, exclaimed in a prophetic spirit: "This country must be united. If persuasion does not unite it, the sword will." The probable solution of these two controverted questions seemed, through long weary weeks, to be given in the ominous words of Gerry: "A secession would take place. . . for some gentlemen seemed decided upon it." At last, Edmund Randolph, who had been one of the most decided advocates of a thorough reform of the constitution in the national sense, refused to sign the one which had been drafted, because its adoption "would end in tyranny."

Nearly four months elapsed before the delegates could agree upon a plan, of which they said to themselves, with Hamilton, that it was not possible to hesitate between the prospect of seeing good come from it and anarchy and convulsion. On the 17th of September it was unanimously resolved that the plan should be adopted by the states represented at the time, which was done. When the last delegates were signing their names to the document, Franklin remarked that he had frequently asked himself in the course of the proceedings whether the sun pictured on the back of the president's chair was an ascending or declining one; but now he had the satisfaction of knowing that it was a rising, not a setting, sun.

This conviction proved ultimately to be correct; but for the moment a firm confidence that success was certain

Ibid, V., pp. 434, 491, 502, 552, 556. See also Edmund Randolph's Letter to the Speaker of the House of Delegates, Virginia, Ibid, I., pp 482-491.

bordered almost on temerity. Much was indeed gained when the convention, with something approaching unanimity, could recommend the proposed constitution to the people; but there yet remained difficulties to be overcome equal at least to those which the convention had surmounted.

The convention had, it is true,-unlike the articles of confederation, which on all the more important questions demanded unanimity,-declared that the consent of nine states should give force to the new constitution, so far as these nine states were concerned; but it was extremely doubtful whether even this number could be won over to it. In the convention itself, and up to the very last moment, it had been impossible to effect a reconciliation of the opposing views. Franklin had purposely given his motion an ambiguous meaning, in order that the final ballot might have the semblance of entire harmony. This might, for the first moment, have the advantage of making a good impression upon the people. The next instant, however, every one must have known that Mason, Randolph, Gerry, and others had decidedly opposed the project and refused it their signature; and then the ruse might have an effect directly opposed to that which Franklin had contemplated. There could be no doubt that the dissenting delegates would endeavor to justify themselves before the public and seek to win public opinion in their favor. Besides, the little phalanx on whom the weight of the battle with the prejudices of the people and with theorizing fanatics and demagogues was to rest, was hopelessly divided. The best names were, it is true, subscribed to the constitution; but there was a goodly number of names which were not there and which stood second only to the best. The consequence was that the prestige which would have been gained for the proposed constitution by actual unanimity, was lost. The success of its advocates in the several states depended mainly on

the grounds which could be advanced in its favor; but the disinclination to follow the exposition and development of these grounds attentively and calmly and to weigh the arguments for it against the actual state of affairs, was greater than even the most pusillanimous had feared.1

The reason of this was not a change for the better in the situation which had occurred in the meantime. Nothing, indeed, had happened to make internal discord and distress greater than they had been or to demonstrate how well justified was the vexatious and suspicious contempt with which European powers regarded the republic. Everything remained very nearly in statu quo. But this very fact caused a radical change in the constitution to appear so urgent, that the one proposed met with ardent support at the eleventh hour from parties whom one might have expected to see in the front rank of its opponents. For instance, Randolph, who could not be induced on any account to subscribe to it in Philadelphia, was one of its most powerful defendants in the Virginia convention, although even there he frankly and energetically gave expression to his objections to it.2

The mass of the particularists combined to wage a most acrimonious opposition, the moment the proposed constitu

The reproof given by Lee, of Westmoreland, to Patrick Henry, and the warning he addressed him, might have applied equally to all the speeches of the Anti-Federalists; Instead of proceeding to investigate the merits of the new plan of government, the worthy character informed us of horrors which he felt, of apprehensions to his mind, which made him tremblingly fearful of the fate of the commonwealth. Mr. Chairman, was it proper to appeal to the fears of this house? The question before us belongs to the judgment of this house. I trust he is come to judge and not to alarm." Elliott, Deb., III., p. 42. "As with me the only question has ever been between previous and subsequent amendments [to the constitution], so I will express my apprehensions that the postponement of this convention to so late a day has extinguished the probability of the former without inevitable ruin to the Union, and the Union is the anchor of our political salvation." Elliott, Deb., III., p. 25.

FIGHT OF THE PARTICULARISTS.

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tion was made public. All moderation, we might almost say all reason, seemed to forsake them the instant they saw that the strengthening of the central government and the proportionate consolidation of the states were no longer a theme of stimulating discussion, but that the machinery was already at work to effect the one and the other. The most fanatical assumed the lead; men for whom no weapon was too blunt or brutal so long as they could use it. Their arguments bordered on the extremest absurdity and their assumptions might have excited the loudest merriment, were it not that the question was one of life or death to the nation. All the bitter experience of the war, and all that followed on its close, was denied and ridiculed as an idle phantom. Out of the proposed constitution, on the other hand, its most harmless provisions not excepted, the same phantom was conjured up day after day; a vague, indefinable something, to which a name understood by everybody was applied, that of "consolidated government," which meant something horrible and to which all that had hitherto been dear to Americans must fall a prey. The same Patrick Henry who, at the outbreak of the Revolution, declared with so much emphasis that he was no longer a Virginian, but an American, asserted now with equal emphasis that under the articles of confederation the people had enjoyed the greatest amount of security and contentment, and that by the resolution to alter the constitution this happy state of affairs had been disturbed and the continuance of the union endangered.'

1 "I consider myself as the servant of the people of this commonwealth, as a sentinel over their rights, liberty and happiness. I represent their feelings when I say that they are exceedingly uneasy at being brought from that state of full security, which they enjoyed, to the present delusive appearance of things. A year ago, the minds of our citizens were at perfect repose. Before the meeting of the late federal convention at Philadelphia, a gencral peace and universal tranquillity prevailed in this country, but since that period they are exceedingly uneasy and disqui